


After

by jessie_pie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28276194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessie_pie/pseuds/jessie_pie
Summary: What happens when the town drunk dies and there’s no one to inherit his stuff?Bobby Singer thinks about the legacy he’ll leave.
Kudos: 2





	After

**Author's Note:**

> There is pretty much nothing Christmas-y about this story, but given it's date of publication, I suppose it's a rather odd present to all of you. So, Merry Christmas!

Bobby sometimes thought about what would happen to the place when he was gone. It wasn’t that he was being macabre, it was just that he wasn’t getting any younger and the monsters weren’t getting any slower.  


If he had his druthers, he’d leave it to Sam and Dean, but including two of the FBI’s most wanted in your will was just asking for trouble, and the boys had enough of that. Nah, he’d just have to hope they had the sense to take all of his old books and weapons.  


The land would probably go to the government. He didn’t know a single living Singer it could default to.  


So Singer Scrap and Salvage would become government property, and then… He figured they’d sell it. It was hardly an ideal place for a park, and Sioux Falls needed the money. Maybe some of the cash would make its way to the sheriff’s office, and Sheriff Mills could have a shiny new patrol car, if he went before she retired. He smiled at the picture. At least one good thing would come out of it.  


The city would sell the land, and then the developers would come. And when the developers came… The digging would start.  


He didn't know where they would start. Probably they’d tear down the outbuildings, and maybe the house, first. If it were up to him, he’d have kept at least one of the buildings around for a while, just for an HQ. But it wouldn’t be up to him- that’s why he was thinking about this at all- and construction workers tended to take a place out in one go. It was like they thought whatever run-down trailers they hauled in would be better than the place he’d spent most of his life in. Then again, it might take years after he passed for the government even to notice he was gone, let alone sorting through all of the legalese to prove he had no next of kin. Who knew what kind of shape the place would be in by then.  


Karen had died in that house twice. After the second time, Bobby had thought about burning the whole place down. In the end, he hadn’t been able to go through with it. Every corner was full of memories, good and bad. That house, in a way, was everything.  


It kind of stung that he wouldn’t be the one to finally take it down, but then, he wouldn’t be around to see it, and that was the whole point.  


Bobby looked around, imagining what it would look like with the walls torn away, the heaps of tires and scrap metal carted off, the ground churned to sucking mud. He wondered how long it would take them to find the bones. Backhoes and graders weren’t exactly precision equipment. Eventually, someone would notice a slash of dirty white in the sea of mud, and when they came over to investigate it, they would find it was too large, too long to belong to an animal.  


That’s when they’d call the police.  


It wasn’t a position he wanted to put Jody in.  


At least it wouldn’t be her problem for long. Bobby’s memory traced out a map. Once Sioux Falls Police started getting a sense of how much was down there, they’d have to call in someone bigger.  


There wouldn’t be any more bulldozers then. The FBI would go through every inch of the property, make sure they found everything. They’d dig up his dogs, Bobby realized. The realization hurt more than he thought it should have.  


Most of the bones looked human. Some of them were.  


The best he could hope for was that the FBI would keep things hush-hush, at least until they were done investigating. He didn’t want his boys to have to deal with that.

  
***************************************************************************************************************************************************  


“Sam!” Dean sounded so shocked that Sam barely wiped the shaving cream off of his face before rushing out of the bathroom.  


Nothing had changed much in the last fifteen minutes. There were no monsters in the room, nothing had exploded, and Dean wasn’t bleeding. The tidy line of shotgun shells on the table in front of him was a bit longer, and the TV was still playing on a low volume. It was showing an aerial shot of a muddy lot.  


“Dean, what’s-” Sam’s _going on_ trailed off as the news chopper rose a bit higher, panning out over the scene. He hadn’t recognized the muddy lot, distinguished only by a few white portable canopies, a backhoe, and one dark van, but that muddy road, that pile of scrap, were intimately familiar. “ _Bobby’s?_ Dean, turn the volume up.”  


Dean seemed to shake himself out of his shock and looked around for the remote. Sam spotted it first and hastily crossed the room, grabbing it off of the foot of his bed. The frame shifted again as Sam fumbled with the remote, zooming in on a square-jawed blonde woman staring intensely at the camera.  


“To recap for our viewers, the FBI were called to this property following the discovery of what appears to be multiple sets of human remains buried on the site. This property formerly belonged to Robert Singer, owner of Singer Scrap and Salvage, and has been uninhabited since the house on this site burned down several years ago, in a fire that has since been ruled arson. After an investigation prompted by non-payment of property taxes, it was discovered that Robert Singer had died a few months after the house burnt down, cause of death listed as a single gunshot wound. In absence of any known heirs, the state sold the property to Duncan and Duncan Development Corporation. It was during their preliminary excavations that the first bodies were found. The FBI has not released details at this time; however, we do know that investigators from the sheriff’s office found at least three partial skeletons before the case was turned over to federal authorities. Excuse me! Sir!”  


A man wearing a suit that could have come off of the same rack as Sam and Dean’s fed outfits walked by the camera. “No comment on an ongoing investigation,” he said curtly, glaring at the camera.  


“The FBI refuses to comment,” the reporter said breathlessly. “But unsubstantiated reports have indicated that some of the skulls found on the Singer property have shown signs of drilling or other possibly premortem-”  


“Turn it off,” Dean snarled.  


Sam complied.  


“That’s not Bobby,” Dean said. “Not who he was. And people are going to think-”  


“I know,” Sam said heavily.  


“I’m gonna call Jody.” Dean reached for his cellphone.  


“Dean, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The FBI’s all over this. They could be listening-”  


Dean was already dialing.  


“Jody. What the hell is going on?” Dean set the phone to speaker and slammed it on the table.  


“Dean, Sam, I’m sorry.” Jody had apparently guessed she was on speakerphone. “You both know I never wanted this to happen. I wanted to call you so you wouldn’t find out this way, but the FBI have been everywhere- I haven’t been able to get a moment alone.”  


“Why didn’t you stop it?” Dean snarled.  


“Dean-” Sam tried to interject.  


“You’re the fucking _sheriff_. You could’ve stopped this.”  


“The sheriff’s office doesn’t control everything, Dean,” Sam said. “I don’t think Jody could have done anything about this.”  


“Sam’s right.” Jody sounded tired. “The first I heard about this was when they put the development permits up at Bobby’s. Even if I’d called in every favor I’m owed, I couldn’t have stopped it. It only would’ve made people ask questions.”  


That made the Winchesters fall silent. If the feds were suspicious of Jody, then Alex, Claire, Donna and probably a lot more hunters were in trouble. Hell, even they could easily be tied to Sheriff Mills.  


“It’s not right,” Dean said. “Bobby was the best man I knew, and he’s going to go down as some kind of… monster.”  


They were silent again.  


“Bobby was smart,” Sam said finally. “He had to know this was going to happen.”  


“You mean…?” Dean’s question trailed off.  


“He must have known,” Jody said.  


“He thought everything else through,” Sam agreed. “But for how long, though?”  


“Years, probably,” Jody said.  


Bobby had saved the world time after time, knowing all the while how he would be remembered. It was a humbling thought.  


They were silent for a long moment. Dean stared into the blank TV screen.  


“Let’s pour one out for Bobby,” he said finally.  


There was a murmur of agreement from Jody and Sam, then clinking over the phone, and rustling as Sam dug a bottle of whiskey out of Dean’s duffel. Dean grabbed two plastic tumblers off the nightstand and Sam poured a measure of whiskey into each.  


“Ready?” he asked, facing the cell phone.  


“Yeah,” Jody answered him. “To Bobby.”  


Sam and Dean raised their glasses and echoed her: “To Bobby.” And it wasn’t the smell of the whiskey that made their eyes water, or its aftertaste that made their voices choked.


End file.
